


279 - Dad Van, Angsty Van, 'Why'd I Break Up With Him' Drama

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: Angst, Dad Van, F/M, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-02
Updated: 2018-06-02
Packaged: 2019-05-17 03:53:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,031
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14824769
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompts “reader and van have a child together but aren’t in a relationship, but things start to rekindle after they keep meeting up to drop off and pick up the child?” and something featuring/inspired by Scaffolding by Seamus Heaney for circavogueMini request of a house party where everyone’s playing truth or dare and Van is dared to kiss the prettiest girl in the room and he kisses Reader and that’s how they meet.





	279 - Dad Van, Angsty Van, 'Why'd I Break Up With Him' Drama

“Look, this… this thing we’ve got… It’s not working… You know that, right? You feel it?”

Van just stared back at you for a moment, his eyebrows pulled in and up. Slowly, his head started to shake in a certain ‘no.’ Heartbroken didn’t even begin to describe his expression, his body language, his defeat. “Wha- I- Thing? This thing? We're… We’re more than a thing, Y/N. We’re building a fuckin’ life together! We have a kid!”

He lived in metaphors, you knew that. “We’re not building a life… We're… You are, Van. You’re building this house for us. Routine. Plans. You’ve got the blueprints for the next ten fucking years… but… You never asked me… I didn’t sign up for this,”

“Sign up to be loved? To have someone look after ya?” he snapped back. “Yeah, I’m building a house. What the fuck else do you want me to do?”

That was just it though. There wasn’t anything more or less Van could do to make you feel differently. From the very beginning of the relationship, you had felt trapped. Van could build the most perfect house of a life, but it would always feel like a cell.

You were nineteen when you met Van. He was nineteen too. It would be easy to look back on it all and claim that neither of you knew any better. Youthful ignorance. Indifference. Recklessness. Truthfully, it was all pretty calculated. 

Van watched you dance through the party. He was trying to come up with something witty to say, something that would overshadow his unwashed hair and holey shoes. Running out of time, he joined the game of truth or dare happening in the spare bedroom. Van usually hated games like that, and drinking games too. Alas, there you were - nursing a bottle of something with the label almost entirely picked off.

“Allllllright,” the girl from school you had gone to the party with said. She’d been watching Van watch you all night. “You - leather jacket guy. Truth or dare?”

“Uh, dare,” Van replied. The people in the room that knew him cheered. He had a reputation. “And me name’s Van, love.”

The girl from school snorted. “Whatever. I dare you to… kiss the prettiest person in the room.”

Everyone was suitably amused at this. A few people made jokes about how they were lucky someone named Larry wasn’t there, because Van was sure to pick him otherwise. Van was silent for a moment, then he took a swig of his beer. The bottle was empty, so he abandoned it to his side, not caring that it fell over and rolled away. You were watching him closely. You had been since he arrived in the room.

Van’s blue eyes were stormy and his lashes were unnaturally thick. They made you wonder what he looked like when he cried, when they clumped together. He had a necklace that caught the light of the bedroom lamps. You watched the reflection dance across the beige wall. He moved like any other drunk lad at the party. But he wasn’t like them and you wanted to know why.

“Easy,” Van announced and began to crawl along the floor. It became immediately obvious that he was heading in your direction. The room hushed itself and you held your breath. Van sat in front of you and smiled warmly. “I’m Van,” he said, holding his hand out.

Taking it, you said, “Y/N,”

“Nice to meet you, Y/N,” he replied, kissing the back of your hand. You hated that he did that but were frozen, no means of telling him chivalry was dead. “If it’s alright with you, was thinkin’ maybe I could give ya just a little snog?”

After that night, you couldn’t shake the thoughts from your brain. He was just so fucking different to anyone else you knew. You had to figure him out. Maybe you mistook that intense curiosity for a crush. Maybe you mistook admiration for love. Van, though, what he felt was definitely love. The relationship was easy and weeks rolled into months and then at four you fell pregnant.

Of course, you both knew better, which meant that calling it an accident was not entirely accurate. For your part, it was laziness. You’d never been good at taking the pill at the same time. But, eh, right? It was still a pretty effective contraceptive method. For Van’s part, he knew that your irregular use was dangerous. The danger though, a baby, well… not such a bad consequence.

Shiloh was perfect and he took after his father. For those first two years, you convinced yourself that life was perfect. You worked part-time in a bookstore in town. Van somehow convinced welfare that he deserved a helping hand. With the free time from not having to have a 9 to 5, he focused on his band and started picking up more and more traction. And that was the start of the end.

As Shiloh entered his third year on Earth, Catfish and the Bottlemen made a record and started to tour all across the globe. Without Van’s adoring presence, you changed. You reverted back to the person you knew yourself always to be. It became painfully clear that you didn’t want to be a rockstar’s girlfriend. A domestic life wasn’t for you. You were so sure and you told yourself so many times over that you were made for something bigger. People asked what was bigger than Shiloh? Than having it easy? Than Van’s unwavering and unconditional love?

“What the fuck else do you want me to do?” Van repeated in a yell.

“Nothing!” you yelled back. “Fuck. Nothing, Van. I just… Since you’ve been gone, all the touring-”

“I can stop that. I can quit the band and get a normal job if-” he interrupted.

“It’s not about that! It's… We just tricked ourselves into thinking this is what we want, 'cause it was what we thought was right for Shi. But he’ll be better off with us separate and happy, than together and unhappy,”

“You’re not happy?” Van asked, his voice breaking. “You don’t fuckin’ speak for me, Y/N. I didn’t trick myself into anything. This is always what I have wanted. From the moment I saw you, I knew I loved you. I don’t know why you’re saying all this shit,”

“Fine! Fuck. Well, I don’t love you, okay? I don’t know if I ever did. I don’t know,” you blurted out, all the syllables rolling together hysterically, trying desperately to not even exist.

“What?”

“I’m not… I’m not trying to hurt you, okay?” you whispered.

“Could 'ave fucking fooled me,” he spat back.

“Don’t be like that. I’m not. This is just… This isn’t a house,” you said, pointing from yourself to him. Van’s breathing was loud. You watched his chest rise and fall. Rise and fall. “I'm… I’m gonna go stay with my mum for a bit-”

“Please don’t fucking do this,”

“And, ah, I don’t wanna take Shi from you. That's… That’s not what this is. So, I’ll leave him here.” Saying it out loud made your heart ache. You started to cry, and Van folded too. “I’ll message and we can… sort something out,”

“Please, please, please, don’t fucking do this, Y/N. Don’t leave. Don’t go,” he begged, falling to his knees in front of you and reaching out to hold you by the hips. You stepped backwards out of his grip.

“Don't… Van… Don’t make this harder. This is the right thing,”

“No. No. Don’t.”

After, when you thought back to that day, you’d scold yourself for being so cold. So calculated. For leaving Van alone in the house he was trying to turn into a home for you and Shiloh. You’d dropped Shi off with Mary and Bernie in the morning to save him from seeing the end. You would think about Van on the floor and you would wonder what he did when you walked out the door. Did he call Larry? Did he sob or scream? Had all the booze been swallowed and dope been smoked? Was he hopeless or did he still think he was born to love you?

 

…

As soon as you woke the next day, you messaged Van. Your fingers shook as you typed; autocorrect kept getting you wrong and it made you frustrated. Asking if you could come over to see Shiloh, you expected a delay in response. As much as he was trying to be all grown up, Van was prone to immature acts of drama. Purposefully not replying was one of those acts. However, the message came through within a minute.

Van told you that it was your house. Your home. Your family.

It was hard to tell via text message if Van had meant that to hurt. You gave him the benefit of the doubt and a time to expect you.

Shiloh was waiting by the front door when you arrived. As soon as you let yourself in, he was clinging to your legs, crying. “Mama!” he wailed. You picked him up and held him close, bouncing him gently and making soft cooing sounds.

Van appeared in the entrance, looking as tired as you felt. He tried to smile. “He's… ah, he’s been like that all night. Hasn’t slept much,” he told you, watching Shi fuss in your arms.

“Makes two of us,” you said, keeping your eyes on your son.

“Three,” Van mumbled, walking away.

You followed him into the lounge room, where you sat in an armchair and nursed Shiloh close. He was calming down but maintained a firm hold of your clothes.

“It was different,” Van said. You looked over at him. He’d sat on the windowsill and lit a cigarette. He’d probably had twenty packs since you left. “Slept without you loads of time, on tour and stuff. But it was different. Fuckin’ hated it,”

“Was different,” you agreed. “I missed him. Made me sick,”

“Him too. He’s used to me being gone. He needs you more. Loves you more,”

“Van. Don’t. Don’t say that. You know it’s not true. He’s always missed you when you’re gone. But we did good and he knows you’re at work. He’s so smart and he gets it. Just because he’s used to it doesn’t mean he likes it. He loves you.”

Van looked sceptical. You’d said that maybe you had never loved him. Somewhere between 3 and 4 am, he’d started to wonder if there was anyone else that had never really loved him. He wondered if there was anyone else capable of hurting him that badly.

“I think you should be here with him. I’ll go stay with Mum and Dad, or Larry or something. Makes sense,” Van said coldly, matter-of-factly.

“Van-”

“I’ve already packed a bag, so…” Van stood, flicking his butt out the window. When you’d moved into the house together, co-signed the lease, you’d taken the screen out of half the windows so Van and all his chain-smoking friends could sit around and smoke without turning the house into a tobacco hotbox. Van would walk the perimeter of the house once every week or so, checking that there wasn’t a build-up of discarded butts anywhere. 

“Wait, Van,” you said, standing and putting the very sleepy Shiloh back in the armchair. Reunited with you, he was comfortable again and had readily fallen into the sleep that had been missed the night before.

Van walked past you, careful not to look at your face. He was scared that if he looked at you, he’d fall apart again. You followed him down the hall and into the bedroom. The room was tidy. The bed was made. He’d not been fucking about; there were two bags sitting zipped and ready to go. Van slung the backpack over his shoulder and picked up the other bag.

“What?” he asked. When you hesitated he nodded to himself, sniffled, then left the room. Again, you followed him through the house. When he was out the front door and chucking his bags in the backseat of his car, you panicked.

“You’re not going to say goodbye to Shiloh?”

Van slammed the car door and stood up painfully straight. “It will just upset him. I’ll Facetime him tonight,” he said calmly. It was a mercy for him to not call you out on using Shiloh like that.

“I… I don’t think you should go like this… It's… This is your home,”

“That’s not what you said, Y/N. And it’s sure as fuck not what you said you wanted. We can’t both live here. You know, with you not loving me and all. Don’t think there is any good option for me. The good option for Shi is to be in that house and do the things he normally does with the people he normally sees. That’s you. So… go do that. Go be a mum,”

“What about you?” you said quickly.

“What about me? Why do you care now?”

Van was right to not understand why you’d care about him. You hadn’t been nasty but you hadn’t been overwhelmingly considerate either. There were no warnings about your departure. There were no attempts to make things better. No couples counselling. No nothing. So, what about Van? Why did you care? The questions he was asking were completely valid. You would have done well to have asked yourself those questions again and again until you had answers. It would have saved a whole lot of time and heartache.

“I… You… shouldn’t have to…” you tried to speak, but each attempt at an explanation sounded false and forced from the first word. Instead, you whispered out what was really running through your immediate consciousness. “What about me?”

Van’s eyes began to water and he wanted so, so fucking desperately to pull you into his arms and hold you and never let go. He wanted to fix it all. He didn’t know what was broken though. Only you saw the cracks in the walls. Van took a deep breath in and got into the car. You watched him drive away. 

The air outside grew colder and colder while you sat on the front step of the house sobbing as quietly as you could manage. When the tears ran out and the throbbing ache in your head demanded medical attention, you wiped your face on the sleeves of your shirt and went back inside.

…

The café was Switzerland - neutral ground. As you sat in a window seat waiting for Van, you thought about how you’d learnt about Switzerland’s neutrality. Like a lot of your knowledge, the first introduction was pop culture, followed by your own research. Unfortunately, in that instance, Twilight had been your teacher. You were smiling to yourself about it when Van walked in.

Before he sat with you, he mimed sipping a drink, which was his way of asking if you’d ordered. When you shook your head, he walked to the counter and ordered what he knew you’d have. Part of you hated it. You hated how traditional he was. How he subscribed to gender norms. The other part of you questioned if you were ready to give up on something that was so safe and honest. Van was authentic. You could trust him.

“Hi,” he said as he sat opposite you.

“Hey. Um. I’ve got… this…” you said, pulling the card from your bag and handing it over. “For you from Shi. He worked on it all day. Finished just before I dropped him with Dad,”

“Thanks,” Van said. The card rested under his hand but he didn’t open it. The blue paint spelling out 'Daddy’ was enough to make his bones ache. He regretted agreeing to a public meeting.

“So… have you thought about… everything?”

“Nothing to do but think, is there?” he said back. Van shrugged then looked around the café. To anyone in the room, he’d look bored with an edge of 'get me out of here.’ It was all false bravado. “I don’t know what you want me to say, Y/N. I’m not gonna sit here and lay out the terms and conditions of getting my heart broken and my kid taken away,”

“I’m not taking him. Don’t say that. You’re the one that told me-”

“Yeah. Okay. I know, alright? I’m sorry. I know. I know you’re not taking him. I just… This is fuckin’ horrible. It hurts. I don’t know what you want me to say,” he said, trying to settle himself.

“Nothing. You don’t have to say anything. I just… we just have to work out a couple of things. Like… ah, the house. You can leave the lease and I can take over that-”

“No,” Van interrupted. “That don’t make sense. They’d expect the rent to come from your account then. Just leave it with my name there too so I can keep paying,”

“You’re not-,” but there was no nice way of putting it. “You’re not living there… so, you don’t have to pay rent,”

“I’m not paying your rent. I’m paying Shiloh’s. How would you pay it anyway?” Van asked. While the question was fair and you had definitely thought about, worried about, income, it still felt like an attack.

“I can get welfare. But I don’t know if I’ll get as much with your name on the lease. I haven’t looked. I want to work, but not at the bookstore more. That’s what this is all… about… ah, I want to do something,”

“Right,” he replied.

A boy wearing an unnecessary canvas apron delivered the drinks. Neither you nor Van made a move towards the cups. Were people watching? Could they see the tension?

“And, um… with Shiloh… Just… Whatever you want. You don’t have to ask to see him. Obviously. Whenever,”

“Don’t think it’s gonna be that simple, Y/N,” Van said. The hairs on his arms had stood up at the mention of his son. Van had already missed so much of Shiloh’s life. Touring with Catfish was for Shi. For you. But it hadn’t come without a cost. The separation would only mean more missed moments.

“We can try it like that. If it doesn’t work… then… I don’t know. We can talk about it then,” you offered.

Van nodded slowly. He chewed his lip for a moment. “Anything else?” he asked, looking down at his coffee.

Probably. But that was enough for the moment. “No… unless you’ve-”

“Okay. I’ll message you when I’m gonna come get my stuff,” Van said as he stood, picked up Shiloh’s card, and stepped away from the table. He didn’t even look at you as he left the café.

Forcing yourself to sit in the café was a punishment. It hurt. You needed to be alone. Instead, you sat in the chair and drank your soy hot chocolate. You smiled each time you accidentally made eye contact with someone. Only when the cup was empty did you allow yourself to leave. Even then, you took the long way to the carpark, terrified you’d bump into Van and have to face reality again.

If you’d done what you had wanted, if you had made a step towards being the version of yourself you wanted to be, why did it hurt so fucking much?

…

When you opened the door for Van, you didn’t know what to say. Suddenly, he felt like a stranger. Like you hadn’t planned a life together. He didn’t say anything to you either. He followed you through the house and into the lounge, where Shi was asleep on the couch. You left Van there, sitting on the floor in front of his son, to go and make tea. It was the only thing you could think of doing.

“Thanks,” Van said as you placed a mug on the coffee table near him.

“Welcome. He’s been asleep for a while. Can probably wake him,”

“Nah. I’ll wait. All good,” he replied, moving to take a seat in one of the armchairs. He took his tea with him and nursed it in his hands for something to do.

“How have you been?” you asked cautiously.

Van’s expression was automatic and it was pained. He chewed his lip as he thought of how to answer. Even then, through all his hurt, he didn’t want to hurt you back. He’d noticed his necklace was still around your neck and he saw it as hope. You’d looked at it in your reflection, short of an answer to why you’d not taken it off and given it back.

“I’m alright. Larry’s place has always felt like home, so… How are you?”

Shit. Worse than. The guilt was overwhelming and it definitely overshadowed any relief you had felt about finally saying what you wanted to say. You hadn’t been sleeping, but neither had Shiloh. He cried every time you put him to bed. He wanted his daddy and he didn’t understand where he was. You wanted to lie, say he was on tour, at work. But the routine for that hadn’t happened. Shiloh probably wouldn’t have believed it anyway.

“Been better, but okay,” you said honestly.

You watched Van catch himself before making another attempt to get you back in his arms. You watched his eyes dart over to Shiloh, who had made a little squeaking sound as he woke.

“Daddy?!”

Leaving them alone in the room, you figured they needed time. It was Van’s first visit after Café Switzerland.

As you cleaned every room except the lounge, you listened to Shiloh and Van. They sounded happy. After two hours of avoiding the room, you checked in on them. Cuddled up together, they were watching a movie. When you delivered lunch to both of them, Van smiled up at you like he used to and it made your heart skip a beat. Leaving them alone again, you locked yourself in the bathroom and cried quietly.

For the rest of the afternoon, you sat in your bedroom with the door open, reading a book and continually losing your place. Your attention snapped back to Van and Shiloh when there was a thud, then silence. As you walked into the hallway, so did Shiloh.

“Hey, baby. Where’s Daddy?” you asked him.

Shiloh’s big blue eyes began to water. “Daddy gone,” he told you, then started to cry. With Shi on your hip, you hugged him tight and went to look out the front window. Van had already pulled out of the driveway and left without so much as a goodbye to you. “Said go to Mummy.”

…

“Did you know about this tour before?”

“No,” Van answered.

“I just… I just think he needs you here right now, you know? Establish new routine and all that,” you said.

Van looked guilty. He knew you thought he was running away from the situation. He couldn’t work out if that is what he was doing. Shrugging, he ran his hand through his hair and looked over at Shiloh, asleep on the couch.

“These festivals are worth it, money-wise. Won’t be gone for long. He’ll hardly notice,”

“You know that’s not fuckin’ true at all. He misses you every day,” you said back in Shiloh’s defence. He wasn’t stupid. He knew when Van wasn’t there and he felt the pain of that.

“Don’t try to guilt me, Y/N. He misses me every day 'cause you split us up,”

“I couldn’t help how I felt. You can help if you go on tour or not,” you argued back.

It didn’t matter who had the better argument. A week later, Van said his goodbyes to Shiloh, promising to Facetime every day. Shiloh was tired of crying and saying goodbye, so he appeared unaffected by it all. Both you and Van knew that wasn’t a good sign.

Van stayed late that night. He tucked Shi in and waited by his bed for him to fall asleep. Even after that, he stayed sitting on the floorboards listening to the light baby snoring. When he finally emerged from Shiloh’s bedroom, his eyes were rimmed red. You walked to him and instinctively wrapped your arms around him. Van collapsed into you and you stayed like that for as long as your spines would let you.

“Do you want to stay tonight?” you whispered as gently as you could.

Van shook his head and began the painful task of untangling himself from you. “No… That… That will fuckin’ kill me… I gotta go,”

“Okay. Yeah. Okay,” you replied, following him to the front door.

He lingered for a second, looking at you, searching for something in your face. You let him leave. 

…

“Shi! Baby! Daddy’s calling!" 

Shiloh ran into the kitchen, wobbly and excited. You handed him the phone. He knew how to answer calls, which still kind of creeped you out. Little kids knew way too much about technology, even if they weren’t explicitly taught.

"I gots ta take dis,” he told you, waddling away. Another behaviour learnt through observation.

After five minutes, you quietly walked down the hall and stood just outside of Shiloh’s open bedroom door. He was telling Van about all the food he’d had since the last time Van called. Food was pretty much Shi’s favourite topic.

“Mama did the bananas in da bread,”

“What?! So, lucky! Her banana bread is amazing!” Van replied.

“And I had… I had some… some… pumpkin,”

“Pumpkin?!” Van echoed. Shiloh had in fact, not had any pumpkin recently.

“Peas… Tea… Spoon.” He was just saying words.

“You ate a spoon, did ya?”

“Ya!” Shi confirmed, then giggled.

When Van had left for the tour, you hated him for it. You knew Shiloh would sense it was different. Of course, you were right. Shiloh pined. He cried. He brooded like only a McCann could. The phone calls from Van were the highlights of Shi’s days. If Van missed even one, you’d ripped him to shreds.

A few weeks in, you found yourself waiting for the calls. You began to answer them for Shi, calling him only once you’d got to see Van’s face yourself. Hear his voice. Listened to him greet you sadly. Say your name.

…

Shiloh’s screech was ear-splitting. “Daddy!” He went from the window to the front door, reaching up and twisting the handle, trying so hard to open it. Emerging quickly from the kitchen, you opened the door for him and let him jump straight into the arms of Van, who was waiting on his knees on the front porch. So, so prone to dramatics. Bless them.

Van wiped tears away before Shiloh could see, but Shiloh was perceptive. “Why you cryin’ Dada?”

“Ah, nah, mate. I ain’t crying. Just happy to see you, darling. Just missed you,” he said, holding Shiloh tighter and picking him up. He looked at you then. “Y/N,”

“Hey,”

“Mind if I come in for a bit? Got a bit of time before dinner,” Van asked.

“Of course, yeah. His bags are all ready to go. I’ll make some tea, yeah?”

Van nodded and smiled. At least his smiles to you were getting less traumatically sad; they weren’t exactly happy though. In the lounge room, Van sat on the couch and let Shiloh climb all over him, telling him stories and pulling at the curls in his hair.

“Daddy gonna get cut?” Shiloh asked. It sounded slightly threatening and Van couldn’t help but look over at you and laugh.

“Daddy’s hair looks good long, Shi,” you said.

“Still got then, do I?” You could hear the Van you fell in love with in his voice. So… you had loved him then?

“Shut up. What tea do you want?” you asked, standing and walking out the room.

Van stayed for an hour before picking up the bags and buckling Shiloh into his car seat. In the front doorway, you leaned against the frame and watched him. Usually at that point, he’d give you a half-hearted wave then drive away. Not that time. Van skipped back up the steps and stood in front of you.

“So, Tuesday afternoon. That’s alright?”

“Yeah, Van. You don’t have to ask,” you replied, trying not to sound annoyed.

“Right, I know. It’s just…” He shrugged. “I… I know you don’t wanna hear this. But… Never been good at keepin’ things in, you know? So, I just wanna say, for the record, that this tour has been the absolute worst. I missed you both. I missed you real fuckin’ bad, Y/N. Just needed you to know that.” Van stepped back and looked at you. He didn’t expect you to say anything in response. A smile and he was down the steps and behind the wheel.

Shiloh waved happily from his seat and you waved them both goodbye.

…

“Heres,” Shiloh said, pulling your bag off the kitchen table by the strap. He handed it to you with a clear intent to be helpful. You looked up at Van, who was holding Shiloh’s backpack. His face was blank. Both of you were a little unsure.

Van was taking Shiloh to see a movie. You knew they’d go shopping too; Shiloh would return home with ten billion bags of new clothes, toys, books and craft sets. Anything he wanted. It had always been like that, even before.

Your hesitation confused Shiloh. He frowned and said, “Mama coming?”

“Uhh… I’ve got-” you started to say.

“Yeah, Shi. Course Mummy’s coming,” Van interrupted. He picked Shiloh up and sat him on his hip. “I’ll go buckle him in. Meet you in the car?” Van asked you. Still unsure, you slowly nodded and watched them leave the room.

It was Van’s time with Shiloh. You didn’t want to impose. Since returning from tour, Van had taken Shi out for day trips and sleepovers just fine. Fortunately, Shi had not assumed you’d be there for each. But that time, you were a little without option. Slinging your bag over your shoulder, you checked yourself in the hallway mirror quickly before locking the front door and walking to the car.

…

“You know, ya welcome to come with us whenever,” Van said.

You were both standing in the doorway of Shiloh’s room. Shi was 'packing’ his bag, ready for a mini road trip along the coast. He was positive he needed at least four books, three teddies, and some crayons. Neither you nor Van bothered to correct his concept of time. Shi would only be gone for the day, but whatever.

“Don’t wanna invade your time with him,” you replied.

“It’s not like that though. It’s not like I need to be alone with him. Even if… if we’re not a thing, we’re still a thing for him, you know what I mean?”

“Yeah, I know.”

Van made a valid point. Maybe it was important for Shiloh to spend time with you both.

“I miss all that… like, non-event stuff too. Just sitting around with you guys. Cooking dinner or whatever. Domestic stuff,” Van said.

“Ready!” Shiloh called, bringing his overstuff backpack over for help with the zip.

“Alright, darlin’. Let’s get a move on then, yeah?” Van said in his bubbly-for-Shiloh voice.

You followed them through the house. After saying goodbye to Shiloh and watching him carefully work his way down the steps outside, you turned to Van. “You can come over more if you want. Have dinner with us and stuff,”

“I don’t wanna make you feel weird, Y/N. Not why I said it… Nevermind, yeah? I’m alright. Ah, we’ll be back by 6. That alright?”

“Yeah. Course. Have a good time,” you replied.

Van nodded and followed Shiloh down the steps. You stayed in the doorway, watching as Van buckled Shi in.

…

Van called early in the morning. When you rolled over in bed, you groaned. Already you could feel the unseasonable heat. As you reached over to the bedside table, you noticed little baby feet sticking out from under your bed. Shiloh liked small spaces for some unknown reason. If he woke before you, he’d take a book and lie under your bed 'reading.’ Usually, that meant he’d just make half words as he random turned pages.

“Hello?” you answered.

“Hi!” Shiloh called. It made you laugh.

“Hey… what? Why you laughing at me already?” Van asked.

“Wow. So defensive. I was laughin’ at Shi. Jeez.”

At the mention of his name, Shiloh popped his head out from under the bed and climbed up to be with you. “Who dat?” he asked, pointing to the phone.

“Daddy,” you told him.

Shiloh made grabby hands, so you handed it over. “Hi, Daddy,” he said. You listened to their conversation, which did nothing to help you figure out what Van wanted. Maybe he just called to speak to his kid. “Ah, Mama here phone,” Shiloh said, handing it back to you.

“Hey,” you said to Van, sitting up ready to move and start your unplanned day.

“Hey. So, it’s gonna be real hot today. Thought maybe I could come get you guys and we could head down to the beach?” he asked.

An hour later, you were in the car laughing at Van’s weird shorts.

An hour after that, you were sitting on a towel and laughing at Shiloh. “Sugar cookie,” he explained, then rolled around in the sand.

“Ya house is gonna be real fuckin’ sandy,” Van said.

“This was your idea. Probably only fair that you come clean it up?”

“Any excuse to hang out with you guys, I’m there.”

Turning to look at him and respond, you quickly became distracted by the redness on his shoulders. You reached out and turned him. “Van. You are cooking. Did you put sun cream on this morning?”

“Didn’t really plan on takin’ my shirt off,”

“God. You’re gonna suffer later. Here. I brought some cream. Hold on,”

“Such a mum.”

Shiloh came over to help. Van held his arms out as Shiloh messily applied sun cream. You covered the sun of Van’s very pale back and shoulders.

“All done, Daddy,” Shiloh said.

“Thanks, darlin’. How’s yours then? Need a touch up?”

Shiloh squealed as Van grabbed him and wiped the excess sun cream off his own arm and smooshed it on Shiloh’s forehead. Their giggling harmonised.

“Want to go back in, Shi?” you asked.

“Yep!”

“What about the rest of me?” Van asked then, his stupid boyish grin on his face. Motioning to his chest, he watched you stand and wait for validation.

You raised an eyebrow at him then helped Shiloh put his arm floaties back on. “You’re a big boy, Van. Reckon you can manage that, yeah?”

He laughed and shrugged. “Been so long, babe,”

“Your literal child is right here,”

“He don’t know what I’m saying,” Van casually replied.

“Hold down the fort, yeah?” you said, walking away with Shiloh following close.

…

“Christ! Mary!”

It wasn’t Van’s happy screaming. Before you could make it to the backyard, where Van and Shiloh had set up a table for painting and crafts, Little Mary came tearing past you, leaving a trail of bright red paint behind. Van followed, also covered in paint.

“Wait, wait, wait! Stop!” you called, grabbing Van and preventing him from going any further than the kitchen, which featured a door that lead outside. “I’ll get her. You’re a mess.”

Mary had run through the house and hidden under Shiloh’s bed. When you finally had her in your arms, you carried her back outside, to where Van was assessing the situation. It was clear that Mary had jumped up onto the low table, causing paint to go flying. Both father and son were covered, as was the cement of the back porch and some of the grass. Inside, the kitchen, hallway and bedroom floor would need cleaning. Shiloh was still laughing.

“I honestly don’t know how to fix this,” Van said.

“I vote… we just… don't…”

Van looked at you and grinned. “Yeah?”

“Yep. You get the dog. Hose her off. I’ll grab a towel. I’ll put this one in the bath,” you said, nodding to Shiloh, who had decided to treat the paint as a puddle and was stomping through it.

“Got it. Let’s do this,” Van agreed, holding his hand up for a high five.

One high five, wet dog, and semi-naked man later, things were beginning to settle. Van appeared in the bathroom doorway in just his underwear. You looked at him and raised an eyebrow. From the bubble bath, Shiloh giggled.

“Alright, so, there’s good news and there’s bad news,” Van reported. “Good news is that Mary is clean. I’ve put the heater on in the lounge and she’s drying in front of it on the towel,”

“Right… Great… Bad news?”

“Bad news is that those were my favourite jeans,” he said, motioning to his naked legs. Why was he wearing his good jeans anyway?

“Right. Well. Get in then. I’ll get you some clothes.”

With no sense of shame, Van dropped his underwear to the ground and got in the bath with Shiloh. “I really like that white lace dress ya’ve got, can I borrow that one?”

“Sorry! It’s in the wash!” you yelled back from the hallway.

While the boys were getting clean, you changed into track pants and an old t-shirt. From the backyard, you collected Van’s painted jeans and shirt and from the bathroom, Shiloh’s outfit too. With everything in the wash, you did your best to clean the paint from the carpet. It would probably need to be professionally cleaned. That was tomorrow’s problem.

“Alright. Who’s getting out first?” you asked when you arrived back in the bathroom.

“Me!” Shiloh screamed. He always opted to go first for anything and everything, regardless of if it was a good or bad thing. He hadn’t really experienced bad though. He stood up and you wrapped him in a towel.

“Do you need help putting on ya clothes?” you asked him when he was dried off.

“Nope,” he said casually, then walked from the bathroom naked. Suddenly, he popped his head around the corner and looked back at you and Van. “Fank you.”

With Shiloh attempting to dress in the next room, you looked back at Van. You’d put a pair of his old jeans and a shirt on the bathroom vanity. They’d been in the wash when Van moved out and you just let them live in your closet. There were other things that you’d failed to return too. Van probably knew, you thought, but like the necklace you still owned (but had moved to your bedside table), it felt like hope for him.

“I forgot how stupid you look in there,” you said to Van. In the small bathtub, he looked even lankier and tall than normal.

“Like what you see, baby?” he asked in a deep, low voice. You laughed out loud.

“Absolutely not. Get dressed.” You went to leave but paused. “You staying for dinner?”

Van was half out the bath, dripping with bubbles. The water was a dirty light brown from all the paint. The expression on his face read as though you’d offered him water when he was dying of thirst.

“If… you don’t mind, yeah. That’d be nice,”

“Okay. Cool. Shi’s been asking for chicken all week. So… Sunday roast on Thursday kind of thing,” you told him, your voice quiet.

“Sounds perfect, love.”

Van helped Shiloh help make dinner. They sat at the table peeling vegetables and mashing potato. Van looked warm and fuzzy in one of his old hoodies. You wondered if he noticed the new holes in it and if he worked out you’d been wearing it in his absence. It was likely. From the beginning, he was on high alert for anything he could cling to.

Shiloh passed out not long after dinner. He was full of his long-awaited chicken and had had a big day. Van carried him from the loungeroom floor to bed, tucking him in and kissing him on the forehead. Back in the lounge, Van sat in one of the armchairs and looked at you.

“I’ll, ah, head off in a second then,”

“You don’t have to- I mean- You can. If you want. I mean, you’ve had a couple… You could-”

“Crash on the couch?” he asked, saving you.

Maybe you knew before that moment. Maybe you didn’t. But, for the first time, all your thoughts and feelings were aligned. Your senses were sharpened. What you wanted was painfully clear to you. No, not the couch.

“Yeah. If you want,” you answered.

The look Van gave you told you that he could see right into your soul. He had always been able to.

“Probably not a bad idea. Feelin’ a little hazy,” he said gently.

You left Van with blankets, pillows, and Little Mary. You left yourself with a question of what you were going to do.

…

A year and a bit had passed since you and Van had split. You still saw him more than you saw any of your friends or family. Yeah, it was the natural consequence of sharing a child, but it was partly by choice. After the day Mary painted everything and everyone, things felt different. Stubborn since birth, you couldn’t admit to yourself let alone anyone else that you may have made the wrong decision. You tried your best to not let yourself ruminate over it. Instead, you fluctuated between being standoffish and being flirty.

To his absolute credit, Van rolled with whatever mood you were dishing out. He deserved better. You knew that. You knew that you had to bite the bullet and make another hard decision. Was there a house to be built from the mess you’d created or was it time to let Van go and rebuild elsewhere?

Getting side-tracked by Shiloh’s fifth birthday, you managed to successfully avoid your own thoughts. There was cake to bake and balloons to inflate. Gifts to wrap. Faces to paint. Shi wanted to invite everyone in his preschool class, but you narrowed it down to just the children he actually knew the names of. They arrived, along with Shiloh’s grandparents and extended family. Basically everyone that Shiloh knew packed into your house for a couple hours on a Saturday afternoon.

It was monitored chaos, but you could tell by the dimple-inducing smile on Shiloh’s face that he was more than happy. He liked being the centre of attention. But even he grew tired and was thankful when his friends were collected by parents and most of the grown-ups went home early to avoid the clean-up. All that remained was Mary and Bernie, Shi, Van and you.

Not having a second to yourself all day, you snuck out the front and sat on the porch. The evening breeze was rolling through the quiet street, and you watched the deflated balloons tied to the fence flap about in the wind. The front door opened and you didn’t have to look to know it was Van. He came and sat on the step next to you.

“For what it’s worth… I think you were right,” he said, looking at the balloons too.

“About what?”

“What you said… when you left. You said that I was trying to turn me and you into a house. Like, build us into something that we weren’t, kind of thing. And I reckon you were right,”

“You do? Always seemed pretty adamant about that,” you replied. Surely Van wasn’t sitting there about to tell you that he wasn’t in love with you anymore. Suddenly, you realised you had never imagined a reality where Van wasn’t in love with you. What the fuck did that mean?

“Well, it’s a metaphor, ain’t it?” he started, and you held in a laugh about his accidental quoting of The Fault in Our Stars and subsequent memes. Van definitely did not know what either of those things were. “So… I was trying to build a house when I should have been smarter about it. When you’re building something, what do you do first?” he asked you.

Shrugging, you waited for him to continue. When he didn’t and he didn’t look over at you and your shrugging, you spoke. “Ah… I don’t know… plan it?”

Van smiled. “I’d done that. Planned for it my whole life, the whole family thing, you know what I mean? Nah. You put up the scaffolding. The safety net, so to speak. I was trying to build a house when I didn’t have no scaffolding to help,”

“I think you’re losing me with this metaphor, Van,” you said.

Although you understood the metaphor, you didn’t know where he was going with it. Under different circumstances, you could probably comprehend it, but your brain was still processing the fact you’d never imaged not being loved by Van. You’d never imagined your life without Van. Was he in all your universes simply as Shiloh’s father? Maybe… No… No. What did Van mean? How did he make you feel? Did he love you anymore? What if he didn’t love you anymore? Who were you without his love? Could you survive without it? Had you ever really felt trapped? Caged? Stuck in a cell? Or were you just terrified that all those adult things were happening way too quickly? How could someone love you so much?

By the time you felt your heart racing and tears pricking at the corners of your eyes, it was too late to stop it.

“Yeah. Look. I stole it from a poem anyway, so… But that ain’t the point. This past year and a bit since we’ve been apart, that’s when we put the scaffolding up. We’ve worked it all out. Figured it out. So now we’re good, you know?” Van turned away from the balloons and the rest of the world. When he looked at you he could read it in your face. You watched his chest inflate with confidence and his spine straighten with courage. “Now we know exactly what we both need. Now we can build the house. 'Cause I still think that’s what you want. I don’t think you ever stopped loving me, Y/N. Never gave me my necklace back, for one. And, I sure as hell didn’t stop loving you,”

“What poem?” you squeaked out. It didn’t sound like your voice at all.

Van licked his lips and nodded once to himself. He’d grant you the time. From his pocket, he drew his phone and he located the verse in his notes.

“Masons, when they start upon a building,  
Are careful to test out the scaffolding;  
Make sure that planks won’t slip at busy points,  
Secure all ladders, tighten bolted joints.  
And yet all this comes down when the job’s done  
Showing off walls of sure and solid stone.  
So if, my dear, there sometimes seem to be  
Old bridges breaking between you and me  
Never fear. We may let the scaffolds fall  
Confident that we have built our wall." 

He’d never been a strong reader, but as he recited the poem he did not stutter or falter. Those words were gospel and Van had sung the hallelujah. After he put his phone away, he looked at you. Your eyes were wide and watering. Your lips were parted, ready to speak but entirely speechless. Slowly, so as not to startle you, Van moved. He gently fell to his knees on the step below you, an echo of the worst day of his life.

"Y/N, baby,” Van said quietly. He put his palms flat on your thighs. “Tell me I’m wrong.” Of course, not a chance. “So, tell me you love me then. Tell me to come home. Tell me you want me home.”

From inside the house, you could hear Shiloh’s voice. Bernie was playing Van’s acoustic guitar and he had Shiloh singing along. The words were indiscernible but still, it was a happy sound. The giggled-out lyrics made you feel warm.

“I…” Your voice was croaky, like it hadn’t been used in years. “I love you. Come home. Please. I want you home.”


End file.
